New and blue :(

I got told to check this game out by a friend. I come i sign up for beta. First i see they push high end vid cards to play "kinda silly but ok" then i see you need a credit card to sign up for beta?? "very odd never seen this before but ok this game looks uber sweet i'll give them the benefit of the doubt" I finally get the thing installed and try and connect and now i get stuck at this loading inventory load bar which crashes my whole comp forcing me to do a manual shut down. Anyone know of this issue? And what may fix it?

PS: Game looks really sweet and also would be great help i believe in me gaining experience in 3d modelling and graphics design for my college classes

I think this *could* be due to a lack of ample space on your hard drive. If you have less then 1 GB of space left on your HD you could have problems, (I have no clue so if this doesnt solve it done blame me , but this is what I come up with).

Thanks but i have atleast 9 gigs free hd space so couldn't be that. Anyone else?

well seems like they pick the graphics card waiver for my problem. Does anyone know when and if this is supposed to become compatible with anything lower then 8500 ati? i mean come on my 7200 is not that out of date considering i can use it with any other game on the market no problem.
I am however curious as to what step in beta is this? Like which phase and how long is each phase normally? So i know when it'd be worth my time to come back and try again.

drak: this game is extremely system-intensive. i can say with 99% certainty that they'll never support the 7200...

it is an ancient card by ANY video hardware standards.
32MB SDR memory... yeowwch...
166MHz memory clock and CPU clock... slower even than a GF2MX
2.7GB/s memory bandwidth... on par with the GeForce256 and GF2MX... blown away by the GF2GTS...
more texels per clock than a GF2MX, but fewer rendering pipelines...

in short (yeah right), if whoever sold the card to you or referred it to you told you it was an awesome budget gaming card... take the card out now and shove it sideways in their ***... it can just about handle Q3 (a game that is now four years old) at 1024x768... any more than that and it chokes.

if you got it when it was new, you've gotten better than average mileage out of it... time to trade up.



ummmm... wanna try playing UT2K3 at anything beyond the minimum graphics settings?
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as far as asking for your CC#... that's because it's a closed beta, and they need to verify you're over 18, for multiple reasons.
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i don't mean to bash your card up there, but the video card market moves very fast, and the game market is working fast to catch up with it... we're finally getting games that challenge the high-end hardware once again, and SL is one of them. if you have some hardcore gamer friends, they'd probably be willing to pawn off an "old" Radeon8500 or 9000, or a GeForce3 to you for half the current retail price, or less.

edit:
heck, i just checked pricewatch, and you could easily snag a new Radeon8500 or GF3 for less than $100...

Re: what step in Beta - We are in the last stage of Beta - Public Beta. I'm not sure what is typical length of this stage is in the industry but I suspect ours will be shorter than most and the next stage is Commerical Release.

While your on the subject of Commerical Release. what is the official word on server wipes,or are we going to keep our stuff
once this gets released?

i dont mean to put you on the spot but inquiring minds want to know

I've never heard anyone at Linden propose server wipes.

Ok First thanks linden for the reply about the phases. Second dude i don't know what burnt out 7200 you used but i've been using mine just fine 64meg vid card btw. I have not played the game you mentioned but i can play any mmo on the market right now with no problem.

I currently beta test eve-online i also played shadowbane,anarchy online, everquest all with no graphics problems and not at lowest setting either. Also to say that you must buy a new 100$ vid card just to play a game that you will be paying monthly to pay is virtual suicide in the mmo industry as it is i know a large amount of people who do not have the latest and greatest vid cards and also have no problems playing any other game on the market.

Mainly because those people work to support "older" a year or maybe two i believe models of vid cards not say you need to buy the newer version and you know why? Because they want the good money from the large range of people who do not have the best.

So i truely hope this isn't true and they consider lowering their standards a bit. I mean if it's that intense with graphics cool but doesn't mean i have to have my graphics set full blown to still enjoy the game. But if it does i am sorry i cannot afford to drop 100$ into a new vid card and will truely miss being in this game. Guess i'll just have to wait for the next company with the same idea that lowers the standards

cool thats what i thought , just wanted to make sure

Drak: It is unlikely that the standards will be lowered to any great degree. This game is -much- more gaphically intesnive than any game you mentioned. All of those, with the exception of Eve, are first gen / 1.5 gen MMOGs. Eve I am betting you do not play at the highest visual settings.

Have you tried Asherons Call 2? Are you expecting to play Everquest 2 on that video card?

Games, all games, constantly have a complex problem of wanting the best graphics/effects to draw customers and the largest base from which to draw those customers. The length of time a video card will be good for is dependant on many factors: whether it is a 'budget' card or not, and the development of other cards.

ATI very recently went through a major break through as far as their technology goes, they went from getting their Arses handed to them on a plate by nVidia to performance king in a very short time span. And this means there are many cards by ATI that are not very old and at the same time are woefully underpowered compared to nvidia cards released at the same time, and any card released today. Many times budget cards are re-worked older versions of the cards, which helps lead to the large disparity in ATIs case. Video game manufactuerers can not be expected to hold back because some ATI cards that are less than 2 years old, but perform worse than 3+ year old nvidia cards, won't play their games.

I really am sorry that this is the case, but its a fact of life. You want to play the latest and greatest games then you have to constantly upgrade your computer. Its one of the leading arguments for consoles.

It is unlikely that future games will have lower system requirements, historically speaking sys reqs for any genre move up with time. MMORPGs are now making a very large leap themselves. The first gen ones were just feeling out the arena and establishing the systems unique to the genra (network and server systems etc). Graphics were there but they weren't cutting edge even when the games were released. Now they are comming out with cutting edge graphics and they look great. The price is higher system reqs.

Sorry and good luck.

such is the life of a gamer

i am a rabid gamer, mainly in the FPS arena, which is very graphically demanding. because gaming is my priority, i have found ways to keep my upgrades on a fairly regular schedule (swapping at least one part out every three months), even through 6 month periods of unemployment (not drawing welfare, mind you -- no income at all), as well as min. wage and near-min. wage jobs.

i think this will actually serve as a good "quality" filter for the SL userbase. immature 13 and 14 year olds who play on their grandma's computer are going to find it very difficult to harass people in a game that makes grandma's computer spontaneously combust

granted, it won't stop all of them... some are spoiled and pampered by parents and grandparents, and get a new $2000 dell or sony computer every christmas or something, and thus will have no problem playing SL. but it will help.
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drak: if every game lowered their hardware requirements by the amount you're asking just to increase their audience size some more, games would never make any technical progress. we'd still be playing games with graphics along the lines of Quake I -- simplified 3D rendering engines that can support software rendering (for those that don't have a real 3D video card, of whom there would be more today if games didn't continue to increase in hardware demands) without major speed sacrifices. Quake II would be considered to have "outstanding graphics, but at a horrible cost - a $200 3D video accelerator with a whopping 16MB of memory". perhaps this is a bit of an exaggeration, but not much.

i hope you're never planning to play doom 3, or any of the multitudes of games that will undoubtedly be built on the doom 3 engine. i watched it at E3, and it was getting 30-60fps at 1024x768 (i think, might've been 800x600) on a Radeon 9700 and a 1.5GHz or faster processor, and i think at least 512MB RAM. i think it'd make your current system choke with incredulity.
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i don't mean to belittle you, mock your system (although the gamer in me severely wants to), or insult your intelligence, but i'm just trying to drive my point home. i don't attend E3, QuakeCon, and one day GDC as well, for the fun of it (well that's not the only reason)... i do it to keep tabs on the pulse of the game industry... and it's pounding just as hard and just as fast as ever... and that means that the hardware heart that pumps the lifeblood of software is going to have to be huge...
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at this point i'm starting to exhaust my current knowledge, so i respectfully resign from the discussion, and request that yuniq, with her infinitely more vast wisdom regarding games and their technologies, step in and clarify this mud i've stirred up

Don't get me wrong. I know games will be making high progress in the visual area. But as with any other game i've played you have been able to lower the graphics settings to work for you. I mean if i don't want every tree to render with beauty i don't have to or stuff like this. I am not saying make the graphics crap for people that can handle i am just suggesting putting in some sort of thing that allows people with a bit older vid cards to still play. I am not saying they'd have the best graphics or even have the quality. But to say they will only crash if they even try to me is crazy. Also no i am not big on fps's anymore so no i don't see what graphics a crazy shooter type game needs but i do know that swg will work on my system without crashing and that's not even released yet. So in short i don't want them to kill or nerf the graphics overall just perhaps some filters to allow lower cards to still enjoy the gameplay but not need the beauty. If you know what i mean.

A huge portion of this game is the visuals. I think if you *were* able to get functionality without the visuals you would be disapointed and think the game was garbage. I think it is in the best interest of the game to NOT allow users filter with reduced results as then those users would spread the word that the game isnt up to snuff when it really IS. Its better to simply allow the high end user and make the user who has a lesser card jones enough to want to fork out the $ for a new card. But then thats just my opinion. Buy a new video card, help the sagging economy

Yo, If you really need it, I have a GeForce2 64mb card that runs the game fine, nothing fancy though. I'm willing to part with it for the cost of shipping. The simple fact is - this game is more resource intensive than almost anything out there. Several factors, first, its being made to compete graphically with some of the better FPS game. Add to that the fact that its all streaming, and that due to the nature of SL, any part of the world can change at any time, and you _will_ run into content that you have never had to download before every time you play means they don't have the luxury of doing weeks of pre-rendering optomization stuff. You have to be able to draw it as soon as its done - or rather one tenth of a second after its done. basically, this just means your going to need a better computer to play this compared to a graphically similar game that has the benifit of static maps.

SL makes a few demands - top quality systems, and broadband. Yes, they are going to have a smaller share of the market innitially, but with something as ambitious as Second Life, they are needed. And eventually the average tech level will catch up with the service, so that you _can_ go play at grandmas without the 'puter blowing up. But don't think for a moment that a $70 Geforce4 MX isn't worth the cost to be able to play, in fact, I feel a $500 GeforceFX 5800 would be worth it.

pm me if you want that card.

BBC

This isn't exactly related to the graphics card problem here, but it does have a tangential relationship. I just wanted to point out that, even if you are somewhat below the minimum specs, the game can still be playable. The game requires at least an 800Mhz processor; I've been playing on a 733 since I signed up. The frame rate's pretty lousy, and the lag can get quite bad when there are a lot of avatars or objects around, but it's still quite playable. Of course, it's not like I didn't have to make sacrifices; I have graphical detail turned down to the minimum, I'm playing at 800x600 (I don't recommend it unless it's absolutley necessary, as it's kind of a pain in the butt when you're building stuff), and my draw distance has been cranked down to about 128. However, I just wanted to point out that, even though I do not technically meet the minimum requirements for the game, I'm still able to play it. In fact, my fiancee's computer (1+ Ghz; don't know the actual specs) tends to give her problems in SL more frequently than I get them. She won't even go NEAR Avatar Central anymore

Ok, tangent finished.

Zel

This reminds me of when they started REQUIRING 3d hardware.

OMG There was a time they *didnt*!?!?